


keeping up with the Joneses

by weatheredlaw



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemon, Daemons, Gen, wow awful painful daemon feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-17
Updated: 2012-09-17
Packaged: 2017-11-14 10:35:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/514325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weatheredlaw/pseuds/weatheredlaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thor understands what it means to have a daemon more than most people think -- after all, he has Mjolnir.</p>
            </blockquote>





	keeping up with the Joneses

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [samskeyti](https://archiveofourown.org/works/485311) by [aisu10](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aisu10/pseuds/aisu10). 



Thor can't quite explain the way his heart beats when Mjolnir is in his hand. He knows everyone thinks he's strange -- the people of Midgard regard those without daemons with great caution. And Thor has seen warriors here when their daemons die. They drop like stones to the ground, lifeless, soulless, without light. And he has seen the way daemons are extinguished when their human counterparts die first. The way they cry out and vanish in a cloud of what Banner calls _dust._

Thor thinks that, if Mjolnir were vanquished, he would die the same as anyone else. 

 

 

He believes Tony Stark must despise him. Thor called Stark's daemon a pet, and he could have sworn there was enough fury behind the man's eyes to kill another. Thor shrunk back, didn't speak to Tony for days. Bruce had made him apologize, made Tony admit that Thor frightened him. That Thor turned his stomach and made him sick. 

That Thor made Tony question everything about this reality he'd ever known. And that was what scared him the most.

 

 

Thor succumbs to Banner's steady stream of requests to visit him in his makeshift lab, once Bruce returns to the city. He has tests he'd like to run, questions to ask. Of everyone on their team, Thor is certain he unsettles Bruce the least, but he doesn't understand why. 

Bruce says his daemon is a mountain weasel, and her name is Pallas. "Named for a goddess, actually," Bruce says with a smile. "Or a nymph, rather."

"How so?"

"It's from Ancient Greece. The goddess, Athena, had a companion and friend named Pallas. Sometimes the title changes, but companion always...always had a nice feel to it. Anyhow, Pallas and Athena were raised together by Triton, another god. They were play fighting one another and Athena accidentally killed her. So, she took on the name as her own." Thor nods as Bruce pulls out an odd piece of equipment. "This is an old machine that measures Dust."

"I like the way you say that word. _Dust._ It carries great importance for you." 

Bruce smiles and nods. "I studied Dust a great deal for my PhD. I thought maybe the connection between daemons was something that could help us with the supersoldier experiments. And I wondered what Dust was made of. It's why I studied gamma radiation. I thought Dust may have been that simple." He frowns, now. "I suppose that was my downfall, in the end. I thought it could all be that simple." Bruce shakes his head. "Anyway, I thought maybe we might see what sort of levels of Dust you're emitting, if any. Did you bring the hammer?"

"I did."

"Right. Set it up there." Bruce points to a high point on the table and Thor obliges. "I have...a theory, I suppose. And I think I may be right. Just...tell me about the hammer. Tell me how you came to have it."

Thor nods, and tells the story of the Dwarven blacksmiths and how his brother had challenged a dwarf named Eitri to best the Sons of Ivaldi and make something more beautiful than their treasures. Ultimately, the hammer was forged for his father, Odin, and in time, passed down. 

"I had to prove my worth," Thor adds. "Many times over." Bruce nods and asks Thor to tie a wire to one end of the hammer, and presses something flat and sticky just over Thor's heart. "What is this for?"

"For measuring Dust. The Dust between you and the hammer. How much it influences your bond. I believe..." Bruce bites his lip and adjusts his glasses. "In a moment, I suppose. Just hold very still for me. And think about the hammer. Think about...about how it makes you _feel._ About what you feel for it." Bruce reaches up and Pallas flows from his neck and down his arm, settling near the machine. "Ready?" he asks her. She nods. Bruce turns on the machine.

Nothing changes, really. Thor distantly hears a crackling noise, like stars bursting, and thinks only about Mjolnir. He is proud of it, adores it, is lost without it. He is only half of himself when it isn't near. When he was exiled, he had felt something _missing_ and he knew all the while what it was. _Mjolnir_ , he thinks to himself, may be _saying_ to himself. He wonders of anyone could understand what it is to be without something that makes you so complete. Who is he without his oldest friend? Who comes when he calls? Who is there when he needs it? 

He is not Thor. He knows that.

The machine turns off. Thor looks up, sees Pallas climbing back up to Bruce's neck and shivering. Banner's hands are shaking, he's putting the machine away with clumsy fingers and scrambling for a seat.

"I was right," he says, over and over again. "We were right." Pallas says something in his ear and Bruce looks up. "Sorry, Thor. I lost myself. I...I'm just excited."

"I don't think I understand."

Bruce smiles. "I believe...I believe Mjolnir...Mjolnir is your _daemon_ , Thor. It, or she, or he...I don't know what you call the hammer but...but you and Mjolnir have the same kind of Dust connection that humans have with their daemons. The levels of Dust, they're the same. Completely consistent with the bond between human and daemon." 

Thor looks at the hammer, unwinds the wire he's tied to the end, and pulls off the pad from his chest. 

"You're saying that, like you, have a daemon. That... _the hammer_. Mjolnir is my daemon."

"Yes," Bruce says breathlessly, and Thor grins.

"So Tony will understand me now."

"Ah." Bruce pulls off his glasses and tucks them into his pocket. "That I can't assure you. Tony is...he's not quick to adjust to this sort of thing. And he isn't the only one. You unnerve a lot of people. I'm sure when you came here, it was very hard to make friends."

"In some ways. The people I met were very keen to know why I seemed to have no companion. Indeed, I was without Mjolnir then as well, so I understand the pain they spoke of, the pain of missing your other half. Even the captain seems to fear me, somewhat."

"Steve's a man of principal and fair judgment. He won't feel that way for long. It's just...we have our customs and your world and your people are so _new_ to us, we don't know what to think. And at any rate, anyone without a daemon is just terrifying to any sensible person on this earth. It means terrible things for the person in question, that terrible things have happened to them. They're close to death, usually."

Thor nods. "But you. You don't fear me."

Bruce smiles. "No. I don't really have a reason to."

"Is it because of your own other self? The form you take? Is that what frightens you?"

Bruce settles onto his stool, reaching up and taking Pallas from his neck, holding her in his lap and absently stroking her back. Thor wonders if he's hit a wall here, if this is where Banner shuts down. But Bruce gives him a weak smile and stares down at the daemon in his hands, silencing her concerned noises with a gentle finger to his lips.

"No. That isn't what frightens me." Bruce leans against the table. "You know, I lose myself when I...when I'm _him._ I wake up and I can't remember a thing. And for the longest time, I wondered, because Pallas couldn't either. I thought, if she's there, too, she should be able to tell me. Shouldn't she? But she _couldn't._ And then, you know, I got caught, quite a few years after the incident. And I...I met an old friend while I was imprisoned. She came to me, and she comforted me. She tried to help me, but...anyway, that's the past. The point is that I learned something from her. I learned the most important thing. I learned the thing that keeps your current state from being as unsettling as it is for Tony. Because I'm sure the others will notice later. When we get out there again. I'm sure they'll see. Or rather, _won't_ see...

"When I'm him," Bruce murmurs, "she disappears." Thor frowns. "I don't know what happens. I don't... _I don't know where she goes._ I wake up and she's back, but when he's there, she's _not._ And I wonder if...I wonder _why_ she goes. And the most horrifying part about it is I just can't figure it out. And I can't find a way to figure it out. Because my...my _friend_. She told me. She told me what everyone was saying. That when they caught the Hulk, when they'd chained him up...there was no daemon. That none of them would touch him. They were repulsed. They were sickened. They couldn't do a damn thing. They waited until I changed back and Pallas was there, and then they kept me knocked out.

"So you _see_. You don't scare me very much at all. Because every single time I lose control? Or I _willingly_ make that change? I'm _losing her._ And it's tearing me apart. It's making me _sick_ and I just don't know what to do."

 

 

Thor leaves Bruce's lab not feeling particularly _better_ \-- Banner's confession makes him sick to his own stomach, and he returns to his own floor feeling worse for wear and emotionally drained. He comes off the elevator and makes his way to his room.

"Can we talk?"

Thor turns and see Stark perched on the kitchen counter, legs swinging and two glasses of scotch in his hands. "Peace offering." Nike rolls hir eyes and mutters, "Starks don't make peace." Tony scowls. 

"My thanks," Thor says quietly, setting the hammer down and trading it for the glass.

"You carry that thing around all the time?"

"Bruce was interested in doing some tests."

"You saw Banner?" Tony looks over the edge of his glass. Thor nods. "Didn't realize he was back in the country. Gotta keep a better lookout for that guy." He takes a long drink. "What's the deal then?"

"He was measuring for Dust." Thor sounds the word out, sharpening the "t" on the end of his tongue -- he likes it, likes the authority it has. "Between myself and Mjolnir."

"Is the hammer your daemon?" Tony asks the point quickly and succinctly, like maybe he knew that well before he came to Thor's floor. It wouldn't be a surprise -- when Stark and Banner are around one another, they tend to speak of an almost elevated world, of a place where they are worshipers in a hall of greater goods. They tell these things to one another like secrets everyone can know, but no one can understand. Thor nods. "I thought...I thought when I first met you. That might be the case. But..." Nike leaps onto the counter and shoves hir head under Tony's arm, purring. 

"What is your daemon?" Thor asks. 

"An ocelot."

"A truly beautiful creature. A beautiful reflection, then, of your soul?"

"More like...the better reflection."

"If you insist." Tony laughs and Thor just finishes his drink. "I must lie down, if you'll excuse me."

"Right. I just...I wanted to say I was sorry. Officially. On the record. Like...like a real, true-blue apology."

"Apology accepted," Thor says, smiling, and walks with Tony to the door. "You know...they say my brother found his daemon while he was here." Tony looks up -- it's common knowledge, at this point, that when Loki was taken from Earth there was a beautiful golden python curled around his leg. She nearly killed the SHIELD rookie who was tasked with removing her. Tony nods. "They're inseparable in their shared prison in Asgard. She may be the one thing that keeps my brother sane. And...and hope. That maybe I may find my own daemon as well."

"There's no...there's no _pressure._ And really, if the hammer--"

"What is fated to happen will happen. If the people of Earth find me an inadequate hero because I do not appear as they do, I will make do with what I can."

Tony shakes his head. "I'll fix it. I'll make sure they know--"

"Whatever you say will matter little. The customs of your world do not mesh with mine. It's understandable. Your rules are not mine. I will continue to defend Earth, whether they accept me or not. I love this world. Hopefully, that is enough."

The look on Tony's face tells Thor that it isn't, that it won't be, that it will _never_ be -- but it doesn't matter. He goes to bed, leaning the hammer against his dresser and stripping off his clothes before sliding between the sheets. There is so much that is different here, and Thor longs for the accepting gaze of Jane and her motley crew. Of Dr. Selvig's knowing smile, Darcy's roll-with-the-punches attitude. He misses his _friends_ , the first he made in this world. 

But most of all, he misses home, and the feeling of knowing his place, knowing his own self, knowing that others knew these things as well. 

He thinks of Bruce's words, of Bruce's fear, and wonders if that is how the people of Earth feel. So sickened at the sight of him, they wouldn't dare come near him. 

It's a sobering thought, and it isn't the most compelling to drift to sleep with, but it is something he must understand, if this is truly the path he's willing to take.

**Author's Note:**

> ah okay so! daemon tidbits. as said before, bruce's daemon is a female mountain weasel named pallas. tony's daemon is a genderqueer ocelot named nike -- pronouns "hir" and "ze" used (ze not in this fic, but in others probably, if i keep going). umm the idea came to me many months ago that loki came to earth, understood a) that humans had daemons and that he found the concept utterly fascinating & b) that he was missing something~ around those parts and when he found his daemon (she is a golden python named cleo). 
> 
> the thoughts about bruce's daemon come from my friend aisu, who wrote this fic: [samskeyti](http://archiveofourown.org/works/485311), which is a beautiful tony/bruce daemon!au fic tha goes into the concept of bruce's daemon disappearing when he changes, and honestly, it's the thing that makes the most, albeit _painful_ , sense.
> 
> think that's about it? google ocelots omg it'll change your life.


End file.
